Retribution Falls

I had a feeling I was going to like this one, based on several fundamental details: airships, pirates, double-crosses. golems, and magically-infused steampunk-like technology. Then there's the Firefly comparison - the crew is just similar enough to the crew of the Serenity to warm your heart if you're a fan of that, but still different enough that they don't feel redundant.

Some people on here seem to give their 5 stars exclusively to books that supposedly change their lives and amounts awesome when mentioned in a serious conversation. There is nothing wrong with that, but I can't help just handing them out to books that were a fuckton of pure FUN in my opinion. This book is like that. Yes, you can say it's not the most original thing ever written by anyone, but I like to think of it as just... comfortably familiar, not boring and lamely cliché. What it does, it does well.
I have to point out that I've not seen Serenity (not really a sci-fi show fan, sorry), so Retribution Falls reminded me of anime instead, mostly Cowboy Bebop, Baccano!, with a tiny bit of FMA. The violence was stylized in a way that it really wasn't shocking or hard to read, and the same goes for all the angsty backstories of the characters. If you want something with plenty of action, without it being too too dark, this is a pretty safe bet in my opinion.
The characters are morally ambiguous enough to be kind of fun and honestly, I find them pretty much impossible to not like. My personal favourites were Crake (rich boy turned pirate because of a professional mistake) and Harkins (war veteran with a ton of issues).
Honestly, even though I have approximately 0 experience with steampunk, if it's like this, I think we will be good friends. Will definitely continue with the series, will recommend to my friends (aka throw it at their faces, sorry).
10/10, pure AWESOME